In some vehicles, a gear shift lever in a passenger compartment of the vehicle can be moved by an operator of the vehicle to shift the vehicle transmission between its park gear and other gears, such as reverse, neutral and forward drive gears. The shift lever is mechanically coupled to the transmission through a cable that transmits the shift lever movement to a transmission shift mechanism.
Other vehicles use a so-called “shift-by-wire” system wherein an operator shift lever or shift control unit is not physically coupled to the transmission shift mechanism by a cable. Instead, the shift control unit is electrically coupled to a shift actuator that is arranged to shift the transmission upon receipt of a signal from the shift control unit that a transmission gear shift is desired by the operator. In these systems, the position of the shift lever does not necessarily correspond to the currently selected transmission gear.